The Land of Eire--Part I

April 14, 2011

Looking out over Tralee Bay from our B&B.

             Alright, it’s finally time to get to my trip to the Land of Eire (or Ireland).  The Moosbruggers, Tim, J Jonathan, Maddie and Marie Coulter, and I shared a small bus, which brought us to Ciampino Airport, which is the cheap airlines’ airport.  easyJet flies out of Fiumicino, but we were flying RyanAir, which is owned by the cheapest CEO in the world.  He once proposed an idea to have passengers standing up for the entire flight, with nothing but a vertical board on which to “rest”, just so they could cram in more passengers.  Enough of that rant—we left at 10:50 Rome time and got into Dublin at about 12:50 Dublin time, which meant a very uncomfortable 3 hour flight, sitting next to a creepy Italian couple, who were all over each other for most of the flight.

            We rented a car for our trip, which made the trip what it was, because we were able to drive all around fairly easily—albeit on the left side of the road.  Jonathan, being the only eligible driver in the group, reserved and drove the car the entire time.  It was fairly scary, yet very humorous, as Jonathan drove right through a red light and we had a fairly close call as we took a U-turn after we had missed the turn earlier.  What really didn’t help us is that the GPS system kept saying “re-calculating” in some snooty British woman’s voice and that Ireland’s highways had been redone within the past couple years, but the GPS wasn’t updated enough, so according to it we were driving under/over/through fields, lakes, and rivers.  So, we made the 4 hour-plus drive across westward to our destination of Camp, Dingle Peninsula, County Kerry, which is an extremely scenic area.

The name of this bar will be familiar to St. Paulites.

           We arrived at Camp Junction B&B at about 6:30 pm or so, and were greeted by our host, John Doyle, the epitome of an Irishman—generous, pleasant, and helpful (a contrast to the Italians)—though he’s technically an American.  He was born in Chicago because his dad had to move there to get work, but his dad moved his family back to Ireland when John was six years-old.  So, he has the Irish accent, and is cool and everything, but—he’s a huge Bears’ fan, which was really too bad to hear.  Anyway, as soon as we got to the living room, he offered all of us cookies and tea, and we were able to sit in extremely comfy seats, all of which was a great change of pace from the hunger and uncomfortable seats experienced in the car.  So, we had some time to get acquainted with the place, and John directed us to Paddy’s Cottage Restaurant, where I had the Atlantic seafood chowder and BBQ ribs.  All of us were filled to the point of bursting, as the portions were huge—the cod that Jonathan got, for example, was about 15” or so, and stretched over each side of his plate.  After a couple hours or so, and a little digestion, we headed to the pub, of which there were two within 150’ of the front drive of the B&B, with John, and he bought us all a pint of Guinness, which was only 3.65 euro, and easily the best in the world, which is no surprise.  And for over half an hour I sat next to and talked with this old guy, who had been drinking since probably two in the afternoon.  That, combined with his Irish accent, made his words nearly intelligible.  I understood one out of every ten words or so.  But, I did catch the fact that he thought I looked like Barack Obama…yeah, I was a little taken aback, and I truly didn’t know what to say, so I just laughed in his face. Overall, though, I'd say that it was a great start to our Irish holiday.  Here's a link to a bunch more images from this post: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150167120571956.304159.507151955&l=ccebb903f9